What weight rod do you recommend to beginners in the PNW? (2024 version)

Matt B said:
My first rod was an 8’4” 4 weight. That was my only rod for a long time. I was living out east. When I moved here I was given a 9’ 6 weight and did a helluva lot with those two rods.
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I think a 4 wt and 6 wt are two real good choices to have. Covers a lot of situations.
 
9' 6 wt, because then your next rod will be a 9' 4 wt, and then you'll likely pick up a 9' 7 wt, and then...
 
If 2 rods, I prefer a true moderate action 5 weight and a salty 7 weight. Pretty much covers all PNW fisheries until you go after the big boys...
 
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Sam Roffe said:
I think a 4 wt and 6 wt are two real good choices to have. Covers a lot of situations.
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These were my next two rods after my first one...the 6wt first, then the 4wt...both of these rods (with reels & line) were gifted to my Godson to learn how to fly fish almost 2 years ago...
 
For trout fishing in rivers, a 10ft 3wt or 10ft 4wt is the most versatile rod you can buy. That applies anywhere, not just the PNW.
 
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It has been 73 years since I needed a 'starter' fly rod-the summer of '51. You can imagine what was available back then....For my 13th birthday my dad bought me a True temper steel fly rod, an 8 footer as I recall and equipped it with a Horrocks-Ibottonsons self winding reel spooled with a mystery level fly line. Although I knew nothing of rod weights or anything else about fly fishing I was delighted to actually catch a fish on my first try. I'm sure there must have been car radio antennas that cast almost as well as that tubular steel fly rod!

The next day I caught my first trout, about a 16'' fish, on a Black Gnat wet fly purchased from a local auto parts store for $.25. The river was the South Fork of the Holston River in Damascus, Virginia, a fine trout stream today but polluted back in the '50's. I haven't seen that stream since 1955 but looked it up on Google Earth a couple of years ago and the chute I caught my first trout in looked exactly the same as it did over 70 years ago and I'm reasonably sure it still holds fish.

This has nothing to do with recommending a first rod for use in Washington, just an old man remembering fly fishing decades ago before many of your daddies were born.

I would concur that a 9' 5wt is a good choice for a starter rod, especially for those that don't fish salt. I don't know what is magic about the 9' length however. I have 3, 4 and 5 wts in 8.5', 9' and 10' lengths and now as I approach 90 I find myself enjoying the 8.5' rods more and use them quite often. A few years ago when I was nearly killed in a logging accident I bought several 8'5' rods to use during my recovery from a broken shoulder on my casting arm. Surprisingly just having a rod 6'' shorter was easier to handle and put less stress on my shoulder. For folks of a more modest stature I would recommend the shorter rods as they are just easier to manage. I still use my 10 footers but primarily for chironomid fishing where I am mostly sitting still staring at a bobber, not much casting skill required.

One last word of advice for buying a starter rod-don't overbuy and overpay. We are living in the Golden Age of quality budget fly rods, better to buy 3 $200 fly rods than one $600 rod before you learn how to cast.
 
My first fly rod was a Pflueger fiberglass spinning rod and a piece 'o crap Martin automatic. My first "real" fly rod was a 6/7 weight St. Croix. I lived in the midwest and used it for Smallmouth/Largemouth, Bluegill, and occasional trips up to Michigan for trout. It was a broomstick, but it caught a lot of fish.

I think a 6 or 7 would cover the most bases in the PNW. Trout in lakes or rivers, panfish, bass, even summer steelhead and salmon.
 
iveofione said:
It has been 73 years since I needed a 'starter' fly rod-the summer of '51. You can imagine what was available back then....For my 13th birthday my dad bought me a True temper steel fly rod, an 8 footer as I recall and equipped it with a Horrocks-Ibottonsons self winding reel spooled with a mystery level fly line.
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Have any steel fly rods survived to the 21st century? I kind of want to try one just to see what they are like.
 
Living in EWA, with its large number of lakes and relative dearth of legally accessible streams, my flyfishing focus has always been on stillwaters. While a 5wt (most of mine are 10') may be overkill for some of the trout in those lakes it is quite adequate for the occasional big one without subjecting it a fight that may prove lethal.

Since I focus on flyfishing lakes, and have fully rigged multiple flyrods with different lines on my kayak, I find that having a variety of 5 wt flylines with different properties is of far more value than fishing heavier or lighter flyrods. Lots of different 5 wt lines/flyreels.

I do, however, have a 6' 3wt Eagle Claw with an ancient Perrine auto-reeI I occasionally use for tiny blue line flyfishing.
 
it's not a 10wt?
 
Salmo_g said:
Oh Josh, I can't believe you'd start this shit up! First off, most of us did NOT start off with a 9' 5 wt unless we're your age or younger. Sheesh, damn kids nowadays anyway. In the days before 1980, or 1970, the single rod quiver was a 7 1/2' or 8' 6 wt in bamboo, followed by fiberglass in the same length and line weight. That would have been the all around trout and panfish rod recommendation in fly shops (what few there were) and sports shops, coast to coast. Then, with the advent of graphite rods in 1973 it took some figuring out that a longer rod could be just as practical in the same line weight. By 1980, Kaufmann's fly shop catalog was recommending a 9' 6 wt as a first rod and all around trout and panfish fly rod. I'll add that Orvis offered an 8' 3" 7 wt graphite rod they named the "All 'Rounder" for everything, trout, panfish, bass, and Atlantic salmon. What a morphadite rod that thing was.

By 1990 fly shops had become commonplace nationwide, fueled by the YUPPIE boom (young urban professionals) toting their VISA gold cards into shops everywhere. I add this because until around 1980, full service fly shops were a rarity, except in key locations like West Yellowstone and thereabouts. In those times of yore, outfitting one's self as a full fledged fly fisher required a fair amount of leg work. Meaning you'd go to one general sports shop for a set of Hodgeman or Marathon waders, another for a fly rod, and possibly yet somewhere else to find a fly reel other than a stamped aluminum cheapie or Pfueger Medalist. And then wander around looking for flies wherever you could find them. A lot of fly fishers took up fly tying just to secure a reliable source of flies. And fly tying materials were scrounged from many places, which made a store like Patrick's Fly Shop on Eastlake in Seattle such a gold mine. Patrick's originally sold only flies and tying materials, no rods, reels, or waders. This is why the good fly fishing waters were relatively uncrowded. It took a lot of gumption and resourcefulness to go fly fishing effectively. But the YUPPIE boom and VISA Gold cards changed all that. Full service fly shops proliferated. You could walk into the new fangled full service fly shop, lay your VISA Gold card on the counter, and walk out fully outfitted from head to toe as a NEWBY fly fisher before ever getting your first fly casting lesson. And fly rod companies went ape shit, meaning that by producing a bountiful supply of fly rods, fly rods became better than ever imaginable. So by about 1990, shop recommendations and popular demand settled on the 9' 5 wt graphite fly rod as the nearly universal introductory all around trout and panfish fly rod. Of course it didn't do everything. Still doesn't. But it does more things than any other single wt rod does. Ask the rod companies; their production receipts prove it. So in addition to fulfilling basic fly fishing needs, rod companies provide offerings for just about any specialized fly fishing application you can imagine. And some that you can't.

It is truly amazing to me. American affluence and credit created the environment for an industry to supply the Golden Age of fly fishing tackle. There now are almost no bad fly rods made because the competition drives the dregs into almost immediate obscurity. All this, by the way, is also why there is some other angler standing on a rock wherever on the planet you want to go fish in relative solitude for some restful alone time.

But now, as always, as anglers acquire more experience and more fly fishing interests, they acquire more fly rods in more lengths and line weights. And the rod companies thank us all for that.
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Well said but you left out the part that the current 9' 5 weights are more like 9'6 weights in sheep's clothing.
Slap a 6 wt line on them and they csast like they were made for it.:ROFLMAO:
 
Old406Kid said:
Well said but you left out the part that the current 9' 5 weights are more like 9'6 weights in sheep's clothing.
Slap a 6 wt line on them and they csast like they were made for it.:ROFLMAO:
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My 9' 5wt Clearwater fishes the 5wt (5.5 actually) Clearwater line just right. That is actually a nice rod, line, and with a Battenkill reel not to spendy. It's a touch fast for my taste but even my grandson can fish it. It say it would be a good first setup for many.
 

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I should mention that I started my grandchildren out on TFO 9' 5 wts. Seemed to work out just fine. Also got them TFO 'office flyrods' so they could better understand and get the feel of how casting flyline differs greatly from their early years with spin gear...there's nothing intuitive about flycasting if one first spent a lot of time throwing bobbers or lures on monofilament.
 
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